00:00:00.000How are you doing? Welcome to Unlearn 16, classes in session. I don't know how long
00:00:12.520I'm going to go on this one, guys. I feel the need to talk about it. I feel the need
00:00:17.300to get into it. I just, I don't know what direction we're going to go or how long I'm
00:00:21.740going to, how long I'm going to last at this, but I think it's important to talk about.
00:00:25.580So I know I've spoken about my grandma on here before, and I know I've spoken about the healthcare system and what she's gone through and her losing her memory. She's 97 years old. I know I've spoken about all that.
00:00:44.640But the funny part is, I don't know if I've spoken about the super important personal stuff, because I think it's really easy for me, for the most part, to show aspects of my life, sure, and to talk with passion and anger and all of those things when it comes to institutions and what I think people deserve and how they deserve it.
00:01:13.340And this might be part of that as well.
00:01:17.140But the interesting thing is we don't spend a lot of time talking about what happens before somebody's life is over.
00:01:32.440And I know that sounds horribly morbid.
00:01:37.940but I feel like we should talk about it more so that when people are going through it,
00:01:45.740they don't feel so alone. It's not so foreign. It's not so overwhelmingly insane.
00:01:57.940So just to give a bit of a backstory, I've been close with my grandma forever,
00:02:03.400and I'll give you pieces of her so you guys can kind of get to know her a little bit.
00:02:07.940Like when I was really young, um, my grandma looked after me. So my mom, my parents got
00:02:14.240divorced when I was young. My mom went to work. She was a nurse and my grandma would look after
00:02:17.960me. Now my grandma took pride in the fact that people would think I was hers. So my mom didn't0.94
00:02:23.900necessarily love that. And my mom makes a joke that the time she decided to put me into a daycare,0.99
00:02:32.180like a very sort of educationally driven daycare was the day, you know, I said to my grandma
00:02:38.960something silly, like what's a virgin? Because obviously I'd overheard somebody saying it as a
00:02:44.700little tiny kid. And my grandma says, well, somebody who's not married yet. And my mom's
00:02:50.760like, well, that's not what we're doing here. We're going to send her off to school. I think
00:02:54.580my mom, it was more like, you know, that's hard between a mom and a daughter and raising their
00:03:00.660kid who gets sort of in that control seat. And my grandma, my grandma is a very, very,
00:03:06.800very strong woman. So she would have really controlled that. So I go off to school, but0.76
00:03:13.460my grandma, my mom, my grandma's my mom's mom and my grandpa and my mom's brother, Ray. I mean,
00:03:24.760he was like a dad to me. My grandma was like a second mom to me. It was a very, very close
00:03:30.280family. So when my mom got divorced, it was like me, my grandma, my mom, and other parts of my
00:03:37.660family. But really the three of us were like intricately, intrinsically, intricately. Oh man,
00:03:45.400English is going to be hard this podcast. Connected. To the point where every year we'd get in the car
00:03:52.800and we'd drive down to Florida. They told me that Memphis was on the way. I did not know it wasn't
00:03:58.580until I was about 15 years old. So we drive down to Memphis, by the way, that's eight hours out of
00:04:03.420the way. And then we come back and drive into Florida. We go to Disney World or whatever we
00:04:07.780were going to do every year. And every year, guys, some of my best stories and some of my best
00:04:14.760memories are from those times when you're like trapped in a car for hours upon hours, you know,
00:04:21.880to give you a synopsis of all like 12, 13 years that we did this, but we're in Ontario. So by
00:04:29.280the time we got to, let's say, oh, I don't know, Syracuse, I'd spent all my money. Hands down. I
00:04:36.880found shoes. I found a hoodie. I found this. I found that. I was no different than I am today.
00:04:41.700And my mom then would start having to spend her money on me and my grandma as a result.
00:04:46.520Now, my grandma would just get frustrated that I, my mom would like, let me sort of lead, you know, whatever I wanted. But my grandma, it's funny, she always played this stoic sort of harder parent. And to her kids, I think she was.0.95
00:05:02.080but I've never felt even in her gruffness because she was gruff even in her necessarily her rules
00:05:11.080or her structure I have never felt anything but love and pride and in a connection to her so we
00:05:20.320drive down there and probably just after Syracuse we could be hitting like I don't know a Carolina
00:05:25.940or something like that. Not too much further than that. We used to have these triptychs and my mom
00:05:34.260would give them to my grandma so my grandma could direct us. Again, pre-Google, pre-phone,
00:05:40.400heaven help us. And at some point, my mom will be looking over my grandma's shoulder trying to1.00
00:05:45.260read it because she didn't think my grandma was doing it right. My grandma would catch her. She
00:05:48.420said, do you want to do this? My mom said, but you're not doing it right. My grandma would throw
00:05:52.000the triptychs across the car and then we'd get lost. Every vacation, guys. That happened every
00:06:00.720vacation. My grandma also every vacation would get mad at some point, get out of the car and1.00
00:06:05.360walk 32 miles to wherever she saw fit. We'd have to drive up and try to catch her. And we'd laugh1.00
00:06:11.380like as much as we could, as we could fight and fight about the stupidest crap. One time1.00
00:06:18.020we were at a gas station. My mom said, I'm going in to pay. Does anybody want anything? No,
00:06:25.620you guys are going to stay here. Okay. I left the keys in the car. Cool. She went in. I said
00:06:29.640to my grandma, grandma, I'm going to go in because I do want something. I said, are you going to
00:06:32.720wait here? Yep. Cool. Left the keys in the car. I go in about three seconds later. My grandma's
00:06:36.880in the store and my mom goes, mom, what are you doing out here? She goes, don't worry. I locked
00:06:43.340the door. Keys were in the car. Keys were in the car. So we had to get a guy, open it up. We got a
00:06:50.420flat tire in the middle of the night. We, you know, my grandma got food poisoning once. My grandma got
00:06:55.080locked into a bathroom at a rest time. And she thought, she was so panicked when she got out0.62
00:07:01.360because she said she thought we were going to leave her. I'm like, grandma, you thought we get
00:07:05.940into the car and forget who sits in the front right-hand seat? Like just drive away? Anyways.
00:07:13.340every Christmas with my grandma, watching her favorite Christmas movie, Die Hard.
00:07:21.640But my grandma would also be the person that when I was in university, I wouldn't know how to spell0.81
00:07:28.080a word. So I'd call her at midnight and she'd be awake because my grandma stayed up all night
00:07:33.120doing whatever. She read a lot. She constantly was doing crosswords and she'd know how to spell
00:07:38.580things. She'd be like, okay, you good? Do you need any money? No? Okay, fine. That was it. That was
00:07:42.880it. There was never, you know, some people with, with different people in your family and this
00:07:48.580happens, there's, there's like a level of pretense, right? I don't know. You, you feel the
00:07:55.180need to behave a certain way, to not hurt feelings, to be respectful, to do the right thing.
00:08:01.400With my grandma, I don't, this is where I think I get it from. I don't think I've ever felt the
00:08:07.420need to be pretentious. Anywhere in this world I've ever walked, especially with her, because
00:08:15.800we never had that. We never had that. My grandma stayed up half the night, didn't get up before 10,
00:08:22.08011 o'clock in the morning, lived on coffee, sugar, cigarettes. I mean, you know, we watched
00:08:27.980Die Hard and action movies and My Fair Lady and we went shopping together. She's probably the one
00:08:34.720that gave me my shopping habit, even though she was always trying to tell me to stop spending so
00:08:38.540much money without younger. And when I was older, you know, she lost my grandpa and my mom lived
00:08:48.060with her. And when I knew that my mom couldn't necessarily take care of my grandma as well,
00:08:54.560like my mom, she was getting, my grandma's getting older, my mom was working. They moved closer to
00:08:59.400where I live. And then eventually I built them the basement apartment in my house so that they
00:09:04.640could both live there and I could help take care of them. And this is all transpiring over quite a
00:09:12.020few years. I guess moving in here was about maybe seven years ago, eight years ago. And getting that
00:09:22.680balance down was hard trying to figure out how to handle everything, but it was all right. It was
00:09:27.880going well. And I liked her close. I liked my grandma and I both like seeing each other every
00:09:34.080day, but not necessarily, you know, spending quality time. We're just like, I'd come home
00:09:40.420from school. We chat while she was having a cigarette on the front porch and that'd be that.
00:09:45.440And I also got very accustomed to my grandma really never being sick. So she's 97 now. And up
00:10:25.540um never really took anything occasionally a tylenol an advil maybe she'd have like these
00:10:34.140other pills that she could take like a tylenol 3 here and there and once in a blue moon but i mean
00:10:40.020she dealt with it all the time now as she got older obviously her memory started to going but
00:10:45.600her body was going even she still only ever took a blood pressure pill so when she got sick um
00:10:52.740we got this weird parasite she's 97 years old and she ends up in the hospital and i just assume
00:11:00.820she'll be fine she'll get out of the hospital and she'll bounce back like she's always done
00:11:07.460and she'll be fine she's my grandma every time we go to the doctor he says that she has superior
00:11:13.300genetics even though she's 97 even in this minute right now i've had moments during this day i can't
00:11:22.500conceive of her not being here. That's not even right. It's so irrational. I can't conceive
00:11:28.940of, of that finality. I, I honestly still believe I'm going to walk into that place and she's going
00:11:37.240to be sitting up ready to go to the casino, which, you know, we went to, but my mom and her went to
00:11:43.460a lot and then we went to a lot. And even since she's been sick, we've, you know, we've had her
00:11:47.640up and and and tried to go there but the last few months it's like0.99
00:11:54.360when you're 97 and you get hit with something just as stupid as a stomach bug like that and0.90
00:12:01.020parasite it just took it it just took all of it out of her all of it so she ends up she was with0.96
00:12:10.660me forever and then my mom got cancer and she had to live with my aunt and then when she was living
00:12:17.200my aunt for a couple of years as my mom was sort of on the mend and we were talking about bringing
00:12:24.640her back in the house and my uncle was going to go with her and my you know everybody was going
00:12:28.880to try to sort of do what they can to make all of that time useful and take care of her the way she
00:12:34.940needed to be taken care of and it was right around that time that she got sick and then it was she
00:12:41.280she couldn't, a single person couldn't take care of her. So we had to put her into an assisted
00:12:47.520living. Now that was horrible. And I, and I know I talked about that in another podcast. It's not
00:12:52.900really what I'm focused on today because the people at that facility have been nothing but
00:12:57.300love and sunshine and, and have taken care of my grandma so incredibly well. I will be forever
00:13:03.860thankful for that, but she'd, you know, sleep for a few days and then she'd get up and I think,
00:13:09.640okay she's good she's good like in a couple days we'll get better and then she'd go back down and
00:13:13.780then she got a weird infection and then one thing after another right and she went back into the
00:13:20.040hospital hospital with this weird infection in her near her ear and it was called something I
00:13:25.820don't even know what it's called and we got that sorted and I thought you know she'll come back
00:13:32.840she'll get stronger, she'll be fine. And that's just not the case. That's just not the case. So
00:13:41.580I think my delusions have kept me incredibly positive for probably too long. I don't know
00:13:50.140if that's good or if that's bad. And in the last week, let's say, I move in and out of being
00:14:00.320realistic in the sense that people say, you know, she's, she doesn't really want to eat.
00:14:07.120She was eating ice cream for a long time. She doesn't want to eat. And then now she's not
00:14:10.300drinking. And I know, I know the logical things about that. I know what happens when you don't
00:14:17.580drink um but i just i sit with her and you know she'll become it'll seem like she's articulate
00:14:30.360and she knows what she wants and she'll say things and i'll feel like and we definitely have
00:14:35.300she knows who i am and all of that kind of stuff and i feel like today this is it then
00:14:39.620we're going to start getting better and today's the day that i realize that's that's not gonna
00:14:46.740happen and I was trying to avoid a lot of meds with her because I thought the meds were the
00:14:53.800thing you know you hear all those horror stories about the elderly and homes and they use too many
00:14:59.000meds and blah blah blah and and I didn't want to do that because I wanted her to be okay but at the
00:15:05.360end of the day I mean even though she's a superhero to 97 at 97 some of her body in this point mostly
00:15:13.340her kidneys are just, if you're not going to drink, they're not going to function, right?
00:15:19.040And my grandma's before all of this, and I didn't sit with her to do this. I don't know how my mom
00:15:22.940did it. My grandma went through all of the different, like what's a DNR and all of those
00:15:28.760things. And I just, I have this way of like, just blacking it out, like compartmentalizing.
00:15:35.860Again, I don't know if that's useful or not. Because I would go back in and think, yeah,
00:15:42.020but she's not there. She's not there. And every day I would think I'm just going to get her back
00:15:47.000to go to the, you know, today when I tell you the story about today, cause today was unfortunately
00:15:54.140an eye opener because at some point she said, Joe, get me up. I want to have a cigarette.
00:16:00.000She doesn't really want a cigarette, but she wants to get up. So, but she hadn't been up in
00:16:03.860a week. And the PSWs, beautiful nurse is there. And she's like, I go, do we get her up? Like,1.00
00:16:12.760I don't know. I don't want to hurt her because she hurts everywhere, right? Everything hurts.
00:16:17.600And I'm not really as cognizant of how bad the kidneys are at this point. And she says,
00:16:23.680let's, we'll get her up. We'll put her, you'll take her out, right? So we get her up and it
00:16:28.980hurts it hurts her but she still wants to go and as we're leaving the doctor who's not there all
00:16:35.260the time who came in basically said no you can't we can't go out turned her around now
00:16:39.340i didn't love how this is a palliative care doctor you have to know i i can be
00:16:47.640i think i'm a pretty good judge of character but i think there's a certain kind of nurse and a
00:16:53.300certain kind of doctor that i respond to you can be abrupt in the sense you don't need to be
00:16:58.300soft in a lot of different ways. In front of my grandma, I want you to be soft,
00:17:02.880but you don't have to necessarily be soft, but I need to hear a level of empathy.
00:17:09.340Because if I can't hear a level of compassion and empathy and just like, you know, their job
00:17:16.700might be dealing with this every day and they might deal with that person and that person and
00:17:20.500that person and come into our room and they've done it seven times. I don't care because it's
00:17:24.400brand new for me the conversations are brand new the kinds of medication are brand new what we're
00:17:30.560supposed to do is brand new you can't come in and just like make it like you're just you know
00:17:36.000making a sandwich here yeah and and I and I got very there's been not very many but just a very
00:17:44.080like stay I became immediately standoff like can can we have a conversation about this you know
00:17:50.680hers was she have to put her back in the bed and I'm like and basically said you guys don't know
00:17:55.280what you're doing because you got her out of a bed but she really shouldn't be out of the bed
00:17:58.260and the fact that she's in renal failure probably at this point it's because toxins are building up
00:18:03.580and she can't make right decisions and basically how dare you get her a bed and I don't often
00:18:09.300keep my mouth shut but I did because at that point I thought I go in my head I'm and a few
00:18:17.820people made that decision it wasn't just me but i'm like did i hurt her am i making it worse for
00:18:23.080her but then i thought once she was already up doctor how could i not just take her outside for
00:18:30.700a minute so who cares if i got down there and she goes i want to go back inside or i don't want to
00:18:35.240see who cares that could have been the last time right but then at that point i was so freaked out
00:18:42.220because I'd, I'd done the wrong thing, but we're expected even when they're in facilities like that
00:18:49.540to understand the meds, to understand what she needs, when she needs it, what are the signs?
00:18:54.500Like, it's not like, it's not like being in a hospital, right? And there are people there that
00:19:00.820have been freaking lovely with her and know her inside and out, but those tend not to be the
00:19:06.540people that are giving meds. So the doctor's like, you know, we need to start giving regimented
00:19:11.720medication because, you know, this is the end. And that's how she said it. And I'm thinking to
00:19:17.260myself, do you think we all knew that? Are we all sitting here on the same freaking page when you0.69
00:19:23.560are so horribly blunt about the end of a person's life? When she was saying it loudly and so
00:19:32.580so bluntly and so it felt callous was she being callous i don't know it felt callous
00:19:43.540and in that job you know in my opinion needed to be better as a doctor you need to be better
00:19:54.160i don't care how many patients you have a day i don't care how tired you are i don't care how
00:19:59.580frustrated you are. I don't care what kind of a pain in the ass patients' families can be.0.99
00:20:03.640You better step in that room with a level of empathy, and I'm going to walk you through it.0.97
00:20:11.480Because if she would have said in a different manner, oh, this might not be a great idea for
00:20:17.220her. Let's just take her outside real quick, get her some fresh air, and come back in so we can1.00
00:20:21.300deal with all the other things. How about that? How about that? Now, I'm sure she was busy. You0.95
00:20:26.500know how much I care about that? No. So I brought her back in and she told us, basically sat us
00:20:35.340down in about 37 seconds, told us this, you know, we're talking days, a couple of days and not too
00:20:43.420long ago, just so you guys are all aware, people were talking about three to six months, three to
00:20:49.300six months and now days. And it felt like, you know, this is just something we were supposed to
00:20:58.720know, but nobody talks about it. Nobody talks about it. And maybe part of that is my fault
00:21:04.900because you don't talk about it because you don't want to talk about it. The minute you do,
00:21:08.720you think you've, you've admitted it, you've accepted it. It's part of, you know, it's like
00:21:14.260you've, you've spoken it into existence. I don't know if that's part of it. I don't know if it's
00:21:18.820part of it, of doctors and our medical system to always give you sort of the shiny, bright future.
00:21:25.480I didn't think three to six months was the shiny, bright future, by the way. I thought that was a
00:21:31.300more dark case, especially since, you know, the woman's only taken a blood pressure pill for,
00:21:39.340you know, 60 years. So today I got to talk to her. She knew who I was. She wanted me to rub
00:21:49.360her arm, which that's not what my, my grandma's not a big fan of that. And then, um, the doctor
00:21:56.980came in and said, no, she needs these meds. And I know that when they give these meds, I'm not
00:22:01.720going to be able to talk to her anymore. Well, I can talk to her. She's just not going to be able
00:22:06.780to talk back and then I felt like am I being selfish by wanting her not to be on those meds
00:22:14.660because when she's not on those meds she knows who I am and we talk and you know we joke and she
00:22:19.600smiles when she sees Anna like am I being selfish at that point of course I am right of course I'm
00:22:27.120being selfish at that point so I just I understand it's something that needs to happen and this is
00:22:36.220how we, you know, as kidney function goes down, I get it. I get them. I really do understand the
00:22:42.580medicine of it. I just wish this was a different conversation at a different time, progressively
00:22:50.820taken rather than what it seemed like today, you know, is something that just hit you over the head,
00:23:00.760super heavy, super hard. And now you just have to figure out how to be with her in that time,
00:23:08.780figure out how to keep her comfortable and safe and loved and how to say goodbye. But that's all
00:23:15.480hard. Nobody teaches you. Who the hell teaches that? How do we ever talk about that? How do we
00:23:22.900ever talk about what does goodbye feel like? How do we talk about how you say goodbye? I want to
00:23:30.500know if she's scared i want to know if she's uneasy i want to know if she if she's relaxed
00:23:39.200about it or if she's if she's like i don't want to go because she doesn't want to necessarily
00:23:43.540leave us like i i just feel like all the times we avoid the discussions
00:23:50.180are we really avoiding being comfortable with something that's inevitable
00:23:58.080you know and and talking through how somebody feels about it and what somebody wants and all
00:24:05.300of those things i think is so so incredibly important but you never know you never know
00:24:11.900how to bring it up when to bring it up how to how to articulate it how to not make it come into
00:24:17.660fruition. And I think you then are met with the medical system, who it's an everyday job.
00:24:29.600I just don't think that people passing can be an everyday job. I don't think there's room
00:24:37.480for individuals who don't go in that with that degree of empathy and that degree of understanding
00:24:45.620and that softness, at least on the front end, I don't understand how they're doing the job.
00:24:51.580I really don't. And I would just made me angry. Now, let's be honest, guys. It's a much happier
00:24:58.060place for me, not happier, but I like the feeling of anger way more than I like the feeling of sad.
00:25:05.580So if I can be angry at that doctor, that makes me feel, I don't know, better is not the right
00:25:14.800word, but there's a directionality of that feeling where I can be like, they needed to do
00:25:19.560this or they should have done this or they should have done that. And then, and then it gets
00:25:23.140redirected against, away from the, the absolute loss of all control when it comes to everything
00:25:32.140else. So maybe that's it, you know, maybe you, you refocus anger and that's why families have
00:25:42.780issues obviously during this time because you refocus all of the anger and all of the this is
00:25:48.660what we should have done or this is what we could have done or the feelings of desperation to fix it
00:25:55.660in any way shape or form you can fix it and then and then it ends up in a day like today
00:26:03.560you know where you have to say you know you're good you're okay you can you know fall asleep
00:26:12.400I'll be here when you wake up or you can go now. Like all of those things that you think somebody wants to hear. Do they? Does anybody want to hear you can go now? I don't know. I can't really do that poll. You know, does it make them feel better? What makes them feel better at that time?
00:26:34.360And that's what I would like to know. And again, I'm talking about it before it's happened, right? Because I know when she's not here anymore, there'll be a time I'm not going to want to talk about it at all.
00:26:46.600But it's right now before all those doors shut where you want to figure out what do I say in that moment, in these last few days, that make her feel the best.